Lightning

1688 – Genroku

England was experiencing its Glorious Revolution. Europe was beginning its Age of Enlightenment. Japan was at peace. It was the era of Genroku 元禄. The reigning emperor was Emperor Higashiyama (東山天皇), but true power lay in the hands of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (徳川綱吉), the fifth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty.

Basho’s study of Buddhism inspired the following haiku. Lightning (稲妻 inazuma) being both enlightening and ephemeral.

稲妻を手にとる闇の紙燭哉
inazuma o / te ni toru yami no / shisoku kana

lightning —
a paper candle
in the darkness
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1687

Note. Paper candle, an ancient means of lighting, a torch.

By the mid-1680s, Basho’s fame was established. He had left Edo for Fukagama where he lived in a simple cottage. There he taught his students and received guests. A disciple gave him a banana plant (basho) as a housewarming gift. And it was this tree that grew beside his cottage that became the symbol of the poet — fragile and, one might say, useless.

あの雲は稲妻を待つたよりかな
ano kumo wa / inazuma o matsu / tayori kana

that cloud —
lightning is waiting
to visit
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1688

In late spring and summer of 1689, Matsuo Basho journeyed to Japan’s northern interior, following a route that took him along the eastern coast, crossing to the west coast, then traveling west and south to Osaka, returning to Edo and the Basho-an in late fall to work on what was to become his best known work (Oku no Hosomichi).

稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni / satora nu hito no / tattosa yo

lightning —
to one who understands
life is precious!
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1690

Note. Tattosa 貴さ, noble and precious. Yo よ, adding emphasis.

In the summer of 1694, Matsuo Basho was 50 years old. He left Edo for the last time, spending time in Ueno, his birthplace, and then Kyoto, where he spent time as a student, before going to nearby Otsu by Lake Biwa.

稲妻や顔のところが薄の穂
inazuma ya / kao no tokoro ga / susuki no ho

lightning —
in place of faces
pampas grass
1694 — summer
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1694

Note. Miscanthus (susuki, commonly called pampas grass) — ever changing, from fresh green shoots in early spring to the long lasting shimmering seed-heads of autumn, a reminder of the fleeting nature of the seasons.

稲妻や闇も方行く五位の声
inazuma ya / yami no kata yuku / goi no koe

lightning
deep in the darkness
the sound of a heron
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1694

Note. The heron (crane) is a divine bird traveling between heaven and earth.

**inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo**, 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ

For Those Who Can’t Get Enough

Inazuma — etymology. 稲 ina, meaning “rice plant”, plus‎ 妻 tsuma, meaning “spouse”. Deriving from an ancient belief that lightning mated with (fertilized) rice plants.

Compare Basho’s haiku with the Diamond Sutra (a Sanskrit text translated into Chinese during the Tang dynasty):

So you should view this fleeting world:
As a drop of dew or a floating bubble in a river,
As lightning flashing in a summer cloud,
As a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.
Diamond Sutra, Chapter 32

Unganji temple 雲岸寺

Zen humor times two — Basho and Buccho. A woodpecker can shake a tree but not Buccho’s hut. Buccho would gladly leave his hut, but it won’t stop raining. Rain or shine, there is always something to write about.

woodpeckers,
can’t shake this hut
in its summer grove

木啄も庵はやぶらず夏木立
kitsutsuki mo io wa yaburazu natsukodachi
Oku no Hosomichi, Matsuo Basho, June 1689

Note. Kitsutsuki, 木啄も, woodpecker using kanji (Chinese) characters. Yaburazu, やぶらず, can’t shake, disturb, meaning to break Buccho’s meditation.

**yaburazu**, a woodpecker can’t shake the serenity of this place

June, 1689, Togachi prefecture

Leaving Kurobane, Basho and Sora walked seven miles into the mountains to visit Unganji temple, known for the practice of Zen meditation. The purpose of his visit was not the temple itself, but the abandoned hut of the poet Buccho. He was Basho’s Zen master and teacher from Edo.

With charcoal made from burnt pine, and with a touch of wry humor, Buccho had written about this about the hut:

My Grassy Hut,
Hardly more than five feet square,
Gladly, I’d quit,
If only it didn’t rain.

Basho’s notes:

… The priest Buccho used to live in isolation in the mountains behind the temple. He once told me that he had written the following poem on the rock of his hermitage with the charcoal he had made from pine.

雲岸寺
当国雲岸寺のおくに佛頂和尚山居跡あり。

竪横の五尺にたらぬ草の庵
むすぶもくやし雨なかりせば

と松の炭して岩に書付侍りと、いつぞや聞え給ふ。其跡みんと雲岸寺に杖を曳ば、人々すゝんで共にいざなひ、若き人おほく道のほど打さはぎて、おぼえず彼梺に到る。山はおくあるけしきにて谷道遥に、松杉黒く苔したゞりて、卯月の天今猶寒し。十景尽る所、橋をわたつて山門に入。

さてかの跡はいづくのほどにやと後の山によぢのぼれば、石上の小庵岩窟にむすびかけたり。妙禅師の死関、法雲法師の石室をみるがごとし。

木啄も庵はやぶらず夏木立

Winter’s Garden, 冬庭や

a wintry garden, a silvery thread,
ah, the moon,
as insects hmm …

fuyu niwa ya
tsuki mo ito naru
mushi no gin

冬庭や月もいとなるむしの吟

2nd year of Genroku, at a tea ceremony with Ichinyū celebrating Banzan.

***by the light of the silvery moon, the insects hmmm***

Winter, 2nd year of Genroku, 1689

At least one modern day student of Basho dates this haiku to 1689 and adds, “on meeting Ichinyū at a celebration held by Banzan.”

Ichinyū was a lay Buddhist teacher and seven year Basho’s senior. By trade he was a traditional tea potter, fourth generation Raku. Ichinyū lived and worked in Kyoto, which suggests that he was an old friend from Basho’s student days.

Kumazawa Banzan was a follower of Confucius, an advocate of agricultural reform who ran afoul of the Shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. Beginning in 1687, Bashan was confined to Koga Castle in Ibaraki Prefecture, making it likely that the occasion for writing this haiku was not a meeting with Banzan, but a celebration of Banzan’s writings that took place at a tea ceremony in Kyoto hosted by Ichinyū.

We should perhaps give Basho credit here for political commentary. I read this haiku as, “the peasants (i.e. insects) continue through winter’s darkness to work (hmmm) for the Imperial court and the samurai class.

Notes on this haiku

The 2nd year of Genroku refers to the reign of Emperor Higashiyama.

Those who garden know that a winter’s garden, fuyu niwa ya, 冬庭や, has but a few plants and fewer insects. The ending character や, ya, turns this phrase into an interjection expressing surprise which I’ve added to the next line. An early frost shrivels the leaves and stills the sounds of the insects who feed on the plants. To me, it is remarkable after an early frost to hear a solitary insect humming. This insect has perhaps burrowed down deep in the earth, found a dung hill, or huddled next to the house to survive the icy cold. And the next day, in the warmth of the sun, merrily goes about its work.

Tsuki mo ito naru. Tsuki is our familiar moon in all its phases. Naru is the verb form for becoming. Mo ito, literally, like a thread, giving us the sense that the moon is waning to a “silvery thread.”

Mushi no Gin, the sound of insects. I render this as “insects hmmm.” Those familiar with Matsuo Basho’s haiku know that as a Zen poet, he was fascinated with the sound of things, whether it was a cricket under a helmet, a frog jumping in an old pond, or insects in rocks.

Basho, Frogs and Water

An old pond,
A frog jumps
Makes the sound of the water

An old pond,
A frog jumps
Water speaks!

Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto

古池蛙飛び込む水の音

Must I explain?

A message so simple, even a child can understand. The frog jumps, the water speaks. Be the frog, be the water, one acts, the other reacts. It is a Zen thing, if you have to explain, you don’t get it. Like a solitary cloud on a summer’s day. Like a blade of grass waving in the wind. Like a buttercup in a sea of green. It is something special that a child understands and an adult forgets.

Splash, plop, smack, splatter, ploof, platshen, kerplunk, flic-floc, gloob, …